Mother mayhem
It’s not just the male grey seals that get aggressive. Females also show quite a lot of aggression, to other females, pups and to males! Female aggression may not be […]
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Meet on the ledge………
Probably the most fundamental part of our data collection is behavioural observations. To do this requires a unique mind-set – a willingness to sit still for hours on end, keeping […]
New Arrivals………..
A couple of days ago now, the field team here on ‘the May’ expanded, with the arrival of the PHATs team. This research team is lead by Dr Kimberley […]
The battle of Isle of May……………
One of the fascinating things to keep an eye on while we are doing our observations of the study females here, is how the males vie for position among the […]
Maddie’s first impressions….
Here’s the first post from Madeleine Harris, one of the three Durham University MBiol students who are part of our field research team this year…enjoy……… Not at one point through […]
Emerald Isle……?
So far the weather has been rather benign, at least for the humans on the island, dry and sunny mainly! Not so good for the seals though it would seem. […]
Weaner’s away……….
A couple of blogs ago we mentioned the rapid weaning of pups. Once their mums have mated with a male, and then finally decided they have invested enough energy and […]
Behaviour of the day……some aggro…
You’ll have noticed in quite a few of the pictures of our study mothers and other seals that we put up on this blog, they often seem to get […]
The transformers…..
One of the most astounding things about spending a long time on a seal colony is witnessing the remarkable transformation that female grey seals go through. When they first arrive […]
Thought Experiments: Picky Eaters
Observation: The cannibal male travelled >40 m to grab a pup. To the two members of our team who focused their PhD research on male grey seal behaviour, this observation […]
Studying Seals 